Welcome to Tipi.co.uk

My fascination with tipis started in the late 1990's, when a friend came back from Spain having spent some time in tipis in Andalusia. A friend he met out there offered to make him one if he bought the canvas, and so, for the cost of the materials and a bottle of vodka to cover the labour, he had a tipi sewn up. A set of poles was sourced during the chainsaw course on our countryside skills course, and the tipi was complete.

During the summer of 1996 we took it to several festivals both in England and France, and, after a summer of practically living in it, I decided I had to make myself one.

Several years passed, each time I spent in my friends tipi I kept promising to make myself one, and then the day came, armed with a computer, internet connection and a credit card (a highly dangerous combination!) I ended up with a roll of canvas and a book - ‘The Indian Tipi, It’s History, Construction, And Use.’ By Reginald & Gladys Laubin. Which I can recommend to anyone interested in tipis. (Please see the books page for further details.)

A quick trip to Argos saw me home with a sewing machine, and I was ready for action.

Several weeks worth of evenings spent wrestling with canvas and plans (and my friends tipi cover, borrowed for reference) saw my tipi eventually finished in the spring of 2002.

The moment of truth was to come a few weeks later when we went to the Larmer Tree Festival.

Here is my tipi on its first outing.

To say I was pleased with it would be an understatement.

One thing led to another and in 2004 I sold my first tipi.

Over ten years later, and I'm still here stitching tipis, though I now have a workshop that has been kitted out with the sole purpose of making tipis. Long gone are the days of wrestling canvas through a domestic sewing machine on the floor, an industrial sewing machine sits snugly in a custom built table.

Please wander round the site, enjoy the pictures, and contact me if I can help in any way, or you want to pass comment on the site, I can take criticism (honest!)

Yurts are an area that I know a bit about, and there is some information on the site,